The below video discusses how this is done.

Shark attacks are most likely to occur on Sunday, in less than 6 feet of water, during a new moon and involve surfers wearing black and white bathing suits, a first of its kind study from the University of Florida suggests.

Researchers analyzed statistics from shark attacks that occurred in Florida’s Volusia County, dubbed the “Shark Attack Capital of the World,” between 1956 and 2008. They also spent a year observing people between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, said George Burgess, director of the International Shark Attack File at UF.

“It’s basically an analysis of why, where and when in an area that traditionally has had more shark-human interactions than any other stretch of coastline in the world,” he said. “One of our students, Brittany Garner, essentially camped out there, counted the number of heads on the beach and took photographs.”

While this 47-mile-long section of Central Florida’s Atlantic coast leads in human-shark skirmishes, making up 21 percent of all global attacks between 1999 and 2008, most are “hit and run” incidents that seldom cause serious injury and no fatalities occurred, he said.

“Calling them attacks is probably a misnomer because the consequences are usually no more severe than a dog bite,” he said. “They’re not the same kind of bites made by 10- to 20-foot-long white sharks that you have off the coast of California. Here we see a different style of attack, primarily perpetrated by smaller fish-eating sharks such as spinners and blacktips that are less than 6 to 7 feet long, which because of their size normally seek smaller prey.”

There have been 231 shark attacks between the first one reported in 1956 in Volusia County and 2008, said Burgess, who works at UF’s Florida Museum of Natural History. The study, part of which was published recently in the edited volume “Sharks and Their Relatives II,” uses statistics from 220 of those cases for which detailed information is available.

Human, shark and environmental factors combine to create a perfect storm of favorable conditions in Volusia County for attacks, particularly near Ponce Inlet between Daytona Beach and New Smyrna Beach, he said.

The more people in the water the greater the chances they will encounter a shark, and New Smyrna Beach south of the inlet is a “hot spot” for surfers with its well developed sand bars and good waves, Burgess said. Hand splashing and feet kicking provoke sharks, which bite and release what they mistake for normal prey items in the turbid waters, he said.

Also, the strong tidal flow in the inlet makes it “an aquatic smorgasbord of food items for sharks, barracudas, mackerel and other large predators,” boosting shark numbers, he said.

Young white males were attacked most because they spend the most time in the water, Burgess said. Ninety percent of victims were male, 77 percent of 196 victims were between 11 and 30 years old and in the 171 cases where race was known, 98 percent were white, he said.

Well over half of the 220 victims were bit on the leg — 158 — more than five times the number bit on the arms — 34 — the second highest body part to be injured, he said.

Surfers were the most frequent victims, making up 61 percent of the total, Burgess said. They tended to be bitten more in the early morning and late afternoon when waves were highest and they spend more time surfing, he said.

“At the time of the attack, most of the surfers were sitting or holding onto the board waiting for a wave, which explains why most surf victims were bitten on the legs,” he said.

Sharks are not weekend warriors. Rather it is human leisure that leads to the fewest number of human encounters on Wednesdays and the highest on Sundays, followed by Saturdays, Burgess said. “There are a fair number of attacks on Fridays as well, reflective of people skipping work and taking three-day weekends,” he said.

The greatest number of attacks occurred during new moons, followed by full moons, the edges of the lunar extreme when the moon has its biggest pull on the tidal phase, Burgess said. Probably the moon’s phases influence the movements and reproductive patterns of fish, the shark’s food source, just as they affect human behavior, he said.

Not surprisingly, attacks were highest during the swimming season, from May through October, peaking in August, Burgess said. They spiked in April as sharks began their seasonal northern migration up the eastern coast of the United States, he said.

Most incidents involved one bite, occurred in turbid, murky or muddy waters and were at the water’s surface, Burgess said. Only one attack was on a diver, he said.

More victims wore swimsuits that were black and white than any other color combination, followed by black and yellow, attesting to sharks’ abilities to see contrast, he said.

Between 1999 and 2008, shark attacks worldwide numbered 639, of which there were 428 reports in the United States, 275 in Florida and 135 in Volusia County. Burgess said.

Bats’ remarkable ability to ‘see’ in the dark uses the echoes from their own calls to decipher the shape of their dark surroundings. This process, known as echolocation, allows bats to perceive their surroundings in great detail, detecting insect prey or identifying threatening predators, and is a skill that engineers are hoping to replicate.

A team of British researchers has worked with six adult Egyptian fruit bats from Tropical World in Leeds to record and recreate their calls. These calls are pairs of ‘clicks’ from the bats’ tongues that they use to fill their surroundings with acoustic energy; the echoes that return allow the bats to form an image of their environment.

New research published today, Tuesday 11 May, in IOP Publishing’s Bioinspiration & Biomimetics, describes how engineers and biologists from the Universities of Strathclyde and Leeds worked with the bats to record their double-click echolocation call, and its returning echoes, using a miniature wireless microphone sensor mounted on the bat whilst in flight.

During echolocation, some bats are known to use a natural acoustic gain control. This allows them to emit high-intensity calls without deafening themselves, and then to hear the weak echoes returning from surrounding objects. The researchers replicated this system in electronics to allow the sensor to record both the emitted and reflected echolocation signals, providing an insight into the full echolocation process.

The six bats performed up to sixteen flights each along a flight corridor. Each flight was short – lasting only about three seconds – but, with the bats’ clicks only lasting a quarter of a millisecond, a large number of calls were recorded for the scientists to analyse.

Once back into the laboratory, the researchers were able to accurately recreate the echolocation calls using a custom-built ultrasonic loudspeaker. This technique will allow the signals and processes bats use to be applied to human engineering systems such as sonar. Specifically, the researchers are looking to apply these techniques in the positioning of robotic vehicles, used in structural testing applications.

Lead author Simon Whiteley from the Centre for Ultrasonic Engineering at the University of Strathclyde, said, “We aim to understand the echolocation process that bats have evolved over millennia, and employ similar signals and techniques in engineering systems. We are currently looking to apply these methods to positioning of robotic vehicles, which are used for structural testing. This will provide enhanced information on the robots’ locations, and hence the location of any structural flaws they may detect.”

PETMAN
“PETMAN is an anthropomorphic robot for testing chemical protection clothing used by the US Army. Unlike previous suit testers, which had to be supported mechanically and had a limited repertoire of motion, PETMAN will balance itself and move freely; walking, crawling and doing a variety of suit-stressing calisthenics during exposure to chemical warfare agents. PETMAN will also simulate human physiology within the protective suit by controlling temperature, humidity and sweating when necessary, all to provide realistic test conditions.”

Find out more about PETMAN here.

RiSE: The Amazing Climbing Robot.
“RiSE is a robot that climbs vertical terrain such as walls, trees and fences. RiSE uses feet with micro-claws to climb on textured surfaces. RiSE changes posture to conform to the curvature of the climbing surface and its tail helps RiSE balance on steep ascents.”

Find out more about RiSE here.

BigDog: The Most Advanced Rough-Terrain Robot on Earth
“BigDog is the alpha male of the Boston Dynamics robots. It is a rough-terrain robot that walks, runs, climbs and carries heavy loads. BigDog is powered by an engine that drives a hydraulic actuation system. BigDog has four legs that are articulated like an animal’s, with compliant elements to absorb shock and recycle energy from one step to the next. BigDog is the size of a large dog or small mule; about 3 feet long, 2.5 feet tall and weighs 240 lbs.”

Find out more about BigDog here.

Visit the Boston Dynamics website here.

A 95-million-year-old am­ber de­pos­it is adding new­found fun­gus, in­sects, spi­ders, nem­a­tode worms, and bac­te­ria to the por­trait of an an­cient ec­o­sys­tem al­so shared by di­no­saurs, sci­en­tists say.

Am­ber is hard­ened, fos­sil­ized tree sap whose glassy, jewel-like and yel­low­ish form of­ten con­tains small crea­tures trapped from the time of its or­i­gin and pre­served nearly per­fect­ly.

The new­found de­pos­it, dat­ed to the Cre­ta­ceous era that was the last ma­jor pe­ri­od of the di­no­saurs, is re­ported to be the first ma­jor dis­cov­ery of its kind from Af­ri­ca.

The find­ing may al­so pro­vide in­sights in­to the rise and di­ver­sifica­t­ion of flow­er­ing plants dur­ing the Cre­ta­ceous, re­search­ers say. A re­port by 20 sci­en­tists on the dis­cov­ery, in the cur­rent is­sue of the re­search jour­nal Pro­ceed­ings of the Na­tional Acad­e­my of Sci­ences, re­con­structs an an­cient trop­i­cal for­est un­cov­ered in pre­s­ent-day Ethi­o­pia.

“Un­til now, we had discov­ered vir­tu­ally no Cre­ta­ceous am­ber sites from the south­ern hemi­sphere’s Gond­wanan su­per­con­ti­nent, a land mass that in­clud­ed mod­ern Af­ri­ca, said re­search group mem­ber Paul Nascim­bene of the Amer­i­can Mu­se­um of Nat­u­ral His­to­ry in New York. “Sig­nif­i­cant Cre­ta­ceous am­ber de­pos­its had been found pri­marily in North Amer­i­ca and Eura­sia.”

“The first an­giosperms, or flow­er­ing plants, ap­peared and di­ver­si­fied in the Cre­ta­ceous,” added Al­ex­an­der Schmidt of the Uni­vers­ity of Göt­tin­gen in Ger­ma­ny, an­oth­er of the in­ves­ti­ga­tors. “Their rise to dom­i­nance dras­tic­ally changed ter­res­tri­al ec­o­sys­tems, and the Ethi­o­pi­an am­ber de­pos­it sheds light on this time of change.”

While some of the au­thors worked on the ge­o­log­i­cal set­ting and the fos­sils en­tombed with­in the am­ber, Nascim­bene, with Ken­neth An­der­son of South­ern Il­li­nois Uni­vers­ity, stud­ied the am­ber it­self. They found that the res­in that seeped from these Cre­ta­ceous Gond­wanan trees is si­m­i­lar chem­ic­ally to more re­cent am­bers from flow­er­ing plants in Mi­o­cene de­pos­its found in Mex­i­co and the Do­min­i­can Re­pub­lic. The am­ber’s chem­ical de­signa­t­ion is Class Ic, and it is the only Ic fos­sil res­in discov­ered thus far from the Cre­ta­ceous. All oth­er doc­u­mented Cre­ta­ceous am­bers are from non-flow­er­ing plants, or gym­nosperms.

“The tree that pro­duced the sap is still un­known, but the am­ber’s chem­is­try is sur­pris­ingly very much like that of a group of more re­cent New World an­giosperms [flow­er­ing plants] called Hy­menaea,” says Nascim­bene. “This am­ber could be from an early an­gi­o­sperm or a previously-unknown co­ni­fer that is quite dis­tinct from the oth­er known Cre­ta­ceous am­ber-producing gym­nosperms.”

Oth­er team mem­bers discov­ered 30 in­sects and spi­ders trapped in the am­ber from thir­teen fam­i­lies of or­gan­isms. These fos­sils rep­re­sent some of the ear­li­est Af­ri­can fos­sil records for a va­ri­e­ty of types, in­clud­ing wasps, bark­lice, moths, bee­tles, a prim­i­tive ant, a rare in­sect called a zorapte­ran, and a sheet-web weav­ing spi­der. Par­a­sit­ic fun­gi that lived on the trees were al­so found, as well as fil­a­ments of bac­te­ria and the re­mains of flow­er­ing plants and ferns.

If life has evolved on Sat­urn’s frig­id moon, Ti­tan, it would be strange, smelly—and po­tent­ial­ly ex­plo­sive, new re­search sug­gests.

The con­clu­sions come from as­tro­bi­ol­o­gist Wil­liam Bains, who pre­s­ents his re­search at the Na­tional As­tron­o­my Meet­ing in Glas­gow, Scot­land on April 13.

“Hol­ly­wood would have prob­lems with these al­iens,” said Bains. “Beam one on­to the Star­ship En­ter­prise and it would boil and then burst in­to flames, and the fumes would kill eve­ry­one in range. Even a ti­ny whiff of its breath would smell un­be­lievably hor­ri­ble.

“But I think it is all the more in­ter­est­ing for that rea­son. Would­n’t it be sad if the most al­ien things we found in the gal­axy were just like us, but blue and with tail­s?” added Bains, re­fer­ring to the tall ex­tra­ter­res­tri­als from the mov­ie Av­a­tar.

Bains, whose re­search is car­ried out through Ru­fus Sci­en­tif­ic Ltd. in Cam­bridge, U.K. and the Mas­sachusetts In­sti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy, is stu­dy­ing just how ex­treme life’s chem­is­try can be.

Life on Ti­tan, Sat­urn’s larg­est moon, is one of strang­er sce­nar­i­os un­der ex­amina­t­ion. Ti­tan is twice as large as our Moon and has a thick at­mos­phere of freez­ing, or­ange smog. At ten times our dis­tance from the Sun, it is a frig­id place, with a sur­face tem­per­a­ture of mi­nus 180 de­grees Cel­si­us (mi­nus 292 Fah­ren­heit). All the wa­ter is ice; the only liq­uids are meth­ane and eth­ane, fill­ing what sci­en­tists be­lieve are ponds and lakes.

“So, if life were to ex­ist on Ti­tan, it must have blood based on liq­uid meth­ane, not wa­ter. That means its whole chem­is­try is radic­ally dif­fer­ent. The mo­le­cules must be made of a wid­er va­ri­e­ty of el­e­ments than we use, but put to­geth­er in smaller molecules. It would al­so be much more chem­ic­ally re­ac­tive,” said Bains.

This blood would have to con­tain dis­solved chem­icals, but few chem­icals dis­solve easily in liq­uid meth­ane. Most mo­le­cules can’t dis­solve in it if they have more than six atoms not count­ing eas­ily-dis­solved hy­dro­gen. So a me­tab­o­lism run­ning in liq­uid meth­ane will have to be built of smaller mo­le­cules than in Earth bio­chem­is­try, which is typ­ic­ally built of mod­ules of around 10 atoms apart from hy­dro­gen.

You can only build around 3,400 dif­fer­ent mo­le­cules with­in the above-described lim­ita­t­ions on Ti­tan, Bains said. In con­trast, he added, one can build around 10 mil­lion or more dif­fer­ent mo­le­cules fit­ting Earth’s re­quired spe­cif­ica­t­ions, al­though only about 700 are ac­tu­ally used.

“The is­sue is not how many mo­le­cules you can make, but wheth­er you can make the col­lec­tion you need to as­sem­ble a me­tab­o­lism. It is like try­ing to find bits of wood in a lumber-yard to make a ta­ble. In the­o­ry you only need five. But you may have a lumber-yard full of off­cuts and still not find ex­actly the right five… so you need the po­ten­tial to make many more mo­le­cules than you ac­tu­ally need. Thus the six-atom chem­icals on Ti­tan would have to in­clude much more di­verse bond types [link­ing the atoms] and probably more di­verse el­e­ments, in­clud­ing sul­phur and phos­pho­rus.”

The el­e­ments would have to ap­pear in much more di­verse forms, as well as in forms that would be highly un­sta­ble on the Earth en­vi­ron­ment—hence the ex­plo­siveness, he added.

En­er­gy is anoth­er fac­tor that would af­fect the type of life that could evolve on Ti­tan. With sun­light a tenth of a per­cent as in­tense on Ti­tan’s sur­face as on the sur­face of Earth, en­er­gy is probably in short sup­ply. “Rapid move­ment or growth needs a lot of en­er­gy, so slow-growing, lichen-like or­gan­isms are pos­si­ble in the­o­ry, but ve­loci­rap­tors are pret­ty much ruled out,” said Bains.

Image Credit: © 2008 Karl Ko­foed

Oxfordshire Science Festival
This event is part of the Oxfordshire Science Festival 2010. For more information visit the website.

We let you, our readers, decide what object you would most like to see scanned; by voting on the following question:

WHAT SPECIMEN BEST REPRESENTS ‘CLEAN AND GREEN’?

Our readers decided:

A Solar Panel Cell – Representing how clean energy may save us from our polluting past?

Our sample is currently being scanned and we hope to have it back and be able to share some pictures with you by the end of the month! – Watch this space…

You can find out more about the Science Oxford Clean and Green Festival here.

Autopsies remain the best way of finding out why someone died, but it’s not always the way it’s shown on TV. In this interactive event, you’ll have a chance to watch a virtual autopsy and talk to the people who perform the procedure. Come and find out how autopsies help doctors understand more about disease and provide information that benefits future generations.

Supported by The Royal College of Pathologists

Further Information

This event is being run by the Royal College of Pathologists. Pathologist John du Parcq, Mario Di Maggio and Ruth Semple from the Royal College of Pathologists will be running this event.

Feedback from this event in the past:
“This was an excellent event – very interesting and enjoyable.”
“I loved how interactive it was.”
“Thank you for an amazing Saturday.”

Related websites:
www.rcpath.org
www.nationalpathologyweek.org

View image here.

ESO has just released a stunning new image of the vast cloud known as the Cat’s Paw Nebula or NGC 6334. This complex region of gas and dust, where numerous massive stars are born, lies near the heart of the Milky Way galaxy, and is heavily obscured by intervening dust clouds.

Few objects in the sky have been as well named as the Cat’s Paw Nebula, a glowing gas cloud resembling the gigantic pawprint of a celestial cat out on an errand across the Universe. British astronomer John Herschel first recorded NGC 6334 in 1837 during his stay in South Africa. Despite using one of the largest telescopes in the world at the time, Herschel seems to have only noted the brightest part of the cloud, seen here towards the lower left.

NGC 6334 lies about 5500 light-years away in the direction of the constellation Scorpius (the Scorpion) and covers an area on the sky slightly larger than the full Moon. The whole gas cloud is about 50 light-years across. The nebula appears red because its blue and green light are scattered and absorbed more efficiently by material between the nebula and Earth. The red light comes predominantly from hydrogen gas glowing under the intense glare of hot young stars.

NGC 6334 is one of the most active nurseries of massive stars in our galaxy and has been extensively studied by astronomers. The nebula conceals freshly minted brilliant blue stars — each nearly ten times the mass of our Sun and born in the last few million years. The region is also home to many baby stars that are buried deep in the dust, making them difficult to study. In total, the Cat’s Paw Nebula could contain several tens of thousands of stars.

Particularly striking is the red, intricate bubble in the lower right part of the image. This is most likely either a star expelling large amount of matter at high speed as it nears the end of its life or the remnant of a star that already has exploded.

This new portrait of the Cat’s Paw Nebula was created from images taken with the Wide Field Imager (WFI) instrument at the 2.2-metre MPG/ESO telescope at the La Silla Observatory in Chile, combining images taken through blue, green and red filters, as well as a special filter designed to let through the light of glowing hydrogen.

In the new block­bust­er film Av­a­tar, hu­mans vis­it the hab­it­a­ble—and in­hab­it­ed—al­ien moon Pan­do­ra. Life-bearing moons like Pan­do­ra or the Star Wars for­est moon of En­dor are a sta­ple of sci­ence fic­tion.

But hab­it­a­ble moons may soon be­come sci­ence fact, and could per­haps even ex­ist around the same star that il­lu­mi­nates the fic­tional Pan­do­ra, as­tro­no­mers say.

“If Pan­do­ra ex­isted, we po­ten­tially could de­tect it and study its at­mos­phere in the next decade,” said Li­sa Kal­te­neg­ger of the Har­vard-Smith­son­ian Cen­ter for As­t­ro­phys­ics in Cam­bridge, Mass.

A new pa­per by Kal­te­neg­ger ar­gues that NASA’s new James Webb Space Tel­e­scope, to be launched in 2014, will be able to study their at­mos­pheres and de­tect key gas­es like car­bon di­ox­ide, ox­y­gen, and wa­ter va­por.

So far, plan­et searches have spot­ted hun­dreds of Ju­pi­ter-sized ob­jects in a range of or­bits. Such gi­ant gas plan­ets, while eas­i­er to de­tect, could not serve as homes for life as we know it. How­ev­er, sci­en­tists have spec­u­lat­ed wheth­er a rocky moon or­bit­ing a gas gi­ant could be life-friendly, if that plan­et or­bited with­in the star’s hab­it­a­ble zone, the re­gion warm enough for liq­uid wa­ter to ex­ist.

“All of the gas gi­ant plan­ets in our so­lar sys­tem have rocky and icy moons,” said Kal­te­neg­ger. “That raises the pos­si­bil­ity that al­ien Ju­pi­ters will al­so have moons. Some of those may be Earth-sized and able to hold on­to an at­mos­phere.”

NASA’s space-based Kep­ler tel­e­scope looks for plan­ets that cross in front of their host stars, which cre­ates a mini-eclipse and dims the star by a small but de­tecta­ble amount. Such a trans­it lasts only hours and re­quires ex­act align­ment of star and plan­et along our line of sight.

Once they have found an al­ien Ju­pi­ter, as­tro­no­mers can look for or­bit­ing moons. A moon’s gra­vity would tug on the plan­et and ei­ther speed or slow its trans­it, de­pend­ing on wheth­er the moon leads or trails the plan­et. The re­sult­ing trans­it dura­t­ion varia­t­ions would in­di­cate the moon’s ex­istence.

Once a moon is found, the next ob­vi­ous ques­tion would be: Does it have an at­mos­phere? If it does, those gas­es will ab­sorb a frac­tion of the star’s light dur­ing the trans­it, leav­ing a ti­ny, tell­tale fin­ger­print to the at­mos­phere’s com­po­si­tion.

The sig­nal is strongest for large worlds with hot, puffy at­mos­pheres, but an Earth-sized moon could be stud­ied if con­di­tions are just right. For ex­am­ple, the separa­t­ion of moon and plan­et needs to be large enough that we could catch just the moon in trans­it, while its plan­et is off to one side of the star.

Kal­te­neg­ger cal­cu­lat­ed what con­di­tions are best for ex­am­in­ing the at­mos­pheres of al­ien moons. She found that Al­pha Cen­tau­ri A, the sys­tem fea­tured in Av­a­tar, would be an ex­cel­lent tar­get.

“Al­pha Cen­tau­ri A is a bright, near­by star very si­m­i­lar to our Sun, so it gives us a strong sig­nal,” Kalteneg­ger ex­plained. “You would only need a hand­ful of trans­its to find wa­ter, ox­y­gen, car­bon di­ox­ide, and meth­ane on an Earth-like moon such as Pan­do­ra.”

While Al­pha Cen­tau­ri A of­fers tan­ta­liz­ing pos­si­bil­i­ties, small, dim, red dwarf stars are bet­ter tar­gets in the hunt for hab­it­a­ble plan­ets or moons, she added. The hab­it­a­ble zone for a red dwarf is clos­er to the star, which in­creases the prob­a­bil­ity of a trans­it.

As­tro­no­mers have de­bat­ed wheth­er tid­al lock­ing could be a prob­lem for red dwarfs. A plan­et close enough to be in the hab­it­a­ble zone would al­so be close enough for the star’s gra­vity to slow it un­til one side al­ways faces the star. (The same pro­cess keeps one side of the Moon al­ways fac­ing Earth.) One side of the plan­et then would be baked in con­stant sun­light, while the oth­er side would freeze in con­stant dark­ness.

An moon in the hab­it­a­ble zone would­n’t face this di­lem­ma. The moon would be tid­ally locked to its plan­et, not to the star, and there­fore would have reg­u­lar day-night cy­cles just like Earth. Its at­mos­phere would mod­er­ate tem­per­a­tures, and plant life would have a source of en­er­gy moon-wide.

“Alien moons or­bit­ing gas gi­ant plan­ets may be more likely to be hab­it­a­ble than tid­ally locked Earth-sized plan­ets or super-Earths,” said Kal­te­neg­ger. “We should cer­tainly keep them in mind as we work to­ward the ul­ti­mate goal of find­ing al­ien life.”

Scott Fleming of the University of Florida has also argued that a single habitable-zone gas giant could serve as a “signpost” for perhaps several habitable moons.

Kalteneg­ger’s pa­per is posted on­line at the arXiv database of Cor­nell Un­ivers­ity in New York.

Image Credit: Da­vid A. Aguilar, CfA

You have to watch the video below. It’s called the Known Universe and is a great animation showing just how small the Earth is. It shows how far the first Human radio signals will have travelled, the parts of the universe we have mapped and the extend of the visible universe.

If you wanted to try this at home all you need is:

• A cup cornstarch
• A bowl
• About half a cup of water
• A spoon
• A small tray
• (Optional) Food colouring

Directions:
Simply empty your cup of starch into the bowl. Stir while you add the water slowly, keep adding until the consistency becomes like thick pancake batter. If you wanted to add food colouring, add a couple of drops at this point.
Now is this time to have a play:

• Stick your hands into the mixture.
• What does it feel like?
• What happens when you slap the surface or try to roll some into a ball and then leave it alone?

So whats going on?

I’m sure you would have heard about states of matter, we usually talk about the three types: solids, liquids and gases.

A mixture of cornstarch and water make what is known as a suspension. When you squeeze a Cornstarch Suspension it really feels like a solid because its molecules line up. But it looks like a liquid and acts like a liquid when no one is pressing on it because the molecules relax. This is another state of matter, called a suspension (It can act like a liquid, or, when pressed like a solid.).

Tat­toos and body pierc­ings—com­mon world­wide since an­cient times—may ex­ist be­cause they ef­fec­tively ad­ver­tise ro­bust health and good genes to po­ten­tial mates, a study pro­poses.

Bi­ol­o­gists the­o­rize that many risky, costly and ap­par­ently use­less be­hav­iors per­sist am­ong ani­mals be­cause of what they com­mu­ni­cate to po­ten­tial mates, ri­vals and oth­ers. For ex­am­ple, an ex­pen­sive Rolex watch may be no more use­ful or pret­ti­er than a Timex, but for some peo­ple it serves a func­tion by cre­at­ing an au­ra of wealth.

A field of ev­o­lu­tion­ary bi­ol­o­gy called sig­nal­ing the­o­ry ex­am­ines such be­hav­iors.

“Hon­est sig­nals” are de­fined as sig­nals that are hard to fake and thus make bet­ter ad­ver­tisements. For in­stance, the Rolex may not show true fi­nan­cial sol­id­ity; you might have just over­drawn your cred­it card or be run­ning a Ponzi scheme.

On the oth­er hand, if you stick a met­al pin through your cheek with­out suf­fer­ing any ill ef­fects, that may ac­tu­ally say some­thing about your im­mune sys­tem, es­pe­cially if dis­in­fec­tion has­n’t been in­vented yet. Thus, it could be an hon­est sig­nal of health, if per­haps not of the sharpest mind.

Sla­womir Koziel of the Pol­ish Acad­e­my of Sci­ences’ In­sti­tute of An­thro­po­l­ogy in Wro­claw, Po­land, and col­leagues de­cid­ed to ex­plore wheth­er body-de­cor­ated peo­ple ac­tu­ally do have bet­ter health than aver­age.

They meas­ured lev­els of bodily sym­me­try in 200 peo­ple with and with­out tat­tooes and un­con­ven­tion­al pierc­ings. Many sci­en­tists con­sid­er such sym­me­try as an in­di­ca­tor of healthy de­vel­op­ment.

Sym­me­try was sig­nif­i­cantly high­er in the tat­tooed-and-pierced group, es­pe­cially in men, the re­search­ers found.

“High­er body sym­me­try of the men hav­ing tat­toos or pierc­ing in­di­cates that this type of body de­cora­t­ion in the West­ern so­ci­e­ty can be re­lat­ed to the hon­est sig­nal of bi­o­log­i­cal qual­ity only for men,” Koziel and col­leagues wrote, de­scrib­ing their find­ings in a pa­per slat­ed for pub­lica­t­ion in the re­search jour­nal Ev­o­lu­tion and Hu­man Be­hav­ior.

“Both tat­toos and pierc­ings can pre­s­ent health risks,” such as due to blood-borne dis­eases, they not­ed, and it’s the abil­ity to take such risks suc­cess­fully that of­fers the bi­o­log­i­cal sig­nal.

It has­n’t been clear to date why tat­tooes and pierc­ings are done, the re­search­ers said. Such de­cora­t­ions can mark mem­ber­ship in a group of some sort, yet of­ten only some group mem­bers opt for these badges of mem­ber­ship. One pos­si­ble ex­plana­t­ion was that peo­ple get tat­tooes and pierc­ings in or­der to dis­tract from some phys­i­cal short­com­ing, but the study re­sults seemed to con­tra­dict this view, Koziel and col­leagues re­marked.

They al­so found that among males in their stu­dy, the most com­mon tat­too loca­t­ions were arms and legs, where­as in fe­males it was back and stom­ach. Pierc­ing were most of­ten on the face (76 per­cent) of males and on the ab­do­men (46 per­cent) of fe­males.

NASA and Microsoft Corp. of Redmond, Wash., have collaborated to create a Web site where Internet users can have fun while advancing their knowledge of Mars.

Drawing on observations from NASA’s Mars missions, the “Be a Martian”
Web site will enable the public to participate as citizen scientists to improve Martian maps, take part in research tasks, and assist Mars science teams studying data about the Red Planet.

“We’re at a point in history where everyone can be an explorer,” said Doug McCuistion, director of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “With so much data coming back from Mars missions that are accessible by all, exploring Mars has become a shared human endeavor. People worldwide can expand the specialized efforts of a few hundred Mars mission team members and make authentic contributions of their own.”

Participants will be able to explore details of the solar system’s grandest canyon, which resides on Mars. Users can call up images in the Valles Marineris canyon before moving on to chart the entire Red Planet. The collaboration of thousands of participants could assist scientists in producing far better maps, smoother zoom-in views, and make for easier interpretation of Martian surface changes.

By counting craters, the public also may help scientists determine the relative ages of small regions on Mars. In the past, counting Martian craters has posed a challenge because of the vast numbers involved.
By contributing, Web site users will win game points assigned to a robotic animal avatar they select.

With a common goal of inspiring digital-age workforce development and life-long learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics, NASA and Microsoft unveiled the Web site at the Microsoft Professional Developers Conference in Los Angeles this week. The site also beckons software developers to win prizes for creating tools that provide access to and analysis of hundreds of thousands of Mars images for online, classroom and Mars mission team use.

“Industry leaders like NASA and Microsoft have a social responsibility as well as a vested interest in advancing science and technology education,” said Walid Abu-Hadba, corporate vice president of the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft. “We are excited to be working with NASA to provide new opportunities to engage with Mars mission data, and to help spark interest and excitement among the next generation of scientists and technologists.”

To encourage more public participation, the site also provides a virtual town hall forum where users can expand their knowledge by proposing Mars questions and voting on which are the most interesting to the community. Online talks by Mars experts will address some of the submitted questions. Other features include interactive tools for viewing Martian regions and movies about people who study Mars in diverse ways.

“Mars exploration inspires people of all ages, and we are especially eager to encourage young people to explore Mars for themselves,” said Charles Elachi, director of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “We are delighted to be involved in providing the creative opportunity for future explorers to contribute to our understanding of Mars.”

“The beauty of this type of experience is that it not only teaches people about Mars and the work NASA is doing there, but it also engages large groups of people to help solve real challenges that computers cannot solve by themselves,” said Marc Mercuri, director of business innovation in the Developer and Platform Evangelism Group at Microsoft.

The Mars Exploration Program is managed by JPL for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

To enroll as a virtual Martian citizen and start exploring, visit: http://beamartian.jpl.nasa.gov/

Our preferred Method:

What you’ll need:

• A plastic bag or light material
• Scissors
• String
• An Egg (perhaps a few!)

Instructions:

1. Cut out a large square from your plastic bag or material.
2. Trim the edges so it looks like an octagon (an eight sided shape).
3. Cut a small whole near the edge of each side.
4. Attach 8 pieces of string of the same length to each of the holes.
5. Tie the pieces of string to the object you are using as a weight.
6. Use a chair or find a high spot to drop your parachute and test how well it worked, remember that you want it to drop as slow as possible.

What’s happening?
Hopefully your parachute will descend slowly to the ground, giving your egg a comfortable landing. When you release the parachute the egg pulls down on the strings and opens up a large surface area of material that uses air resistance to slow it down. The larger the surface area the more air resistance and the slower the parachute will drop.

Cutting a small hole in the middle of the parachute will allow air to slowly pass through it rather than spilling out over one side, this should help the parachute fall straighter.

Some more inspiration:

You can now watch the webcast “Science as a Path to World Domination” from Science Oxford Live.

Do you worry how you’re going to help defeat superman? Do you fear being captured by the X-men? Then watch this session where Dr. Fear T. Shadow will guide you through the science behind the superheroes.

A contemporary anthology of short stories which uses the research of real scientists to put facts back before fantasy in popular science fiction has been published.

‘When it all Changed’, edited by novelist Geoff Ryman brings together scientists from institutions across the UK – including STFC Daresbury Laboratory and The University of Manchester – and science fiction writers.

Ryman, a senior creative writing lecturer at The University of Manchester, paired off literary colleagues with scientists to produce the book of short stories published by Comma Press.

Three scientists working at STFC Daresbury Laboratory, and one from the neighbouring Cockcroft Institute for Accelerator Science and Technology, were among 14 who helped the authors to write the stories, and add a fascinating insight into the science.

Geoff Ryman, who is based at The Centre For Creative Writing at the University of Manchester, said: “We wanted to go out and locate what is fresh and new in the sciences, and give writers a chance to work with researchers to come up with different, contemporary themes. ‘When it Changed’ actively extends the scientific repertoire of fiction – all fiction because we have mainstream writers as well. The best SF is a fairy tale made plausible by science that could give readers a lot to think about as well as wonder at.”

The Science and Technology Facilities Council’s Director of Computational Science and Engineering Dr Richard Blake was delighted to be involved in the project. He said: “Much science fiction is based on fantasy and has become anything other than scientific. The real work and research of real scientists is largely absent from fictions set in the real world. This book of short stories aims to change that. I was delighted to be involved with this book and help to give science fiction readers a genuine taste of how future science could impact the lives of human beings.”

‘When it all Changed’ was launched at a special event as part of The Manchester Science Festival on 24 October.